Lidl Christmas trading: shoppers upgrade to Deluxe in December

Lidl UK experienced a 33% increase in year-on-year (YOY) sales for its premium product range, Deluxe, this Christmas, with customers switching £58m of spend from Waitrose, M&S and the big four[, over to the discounter.

After winning Gold at the Quality Food Awards, the supermarket’s Deluxe Large Broadland Free Range Bronze Turkey performed particularly well, with sales increasing by more than 100% YOY. At just £3.95 per kg, the discounter’s Birchwood Farm Turkey also offered customers the best value whole fresh British turkey this Christmas, contributing to an overall increase of 18% in turkey sales[.

Other best-selling products from the Deluxe range, which offers shoppers high quality products at market-leading prices, were:

· Deluxe Hand Cooked Crisps

· Deluxe Luxury Mince Pies

· Deluxe Brioche Burger Buns

Sales across the estate in the six weeks to 30 December were up 8% on the same period in 2017, with its busiest day falling on Saturday 22 dDecember.

Christian Härtnagel, Lidl UK CEO, said: “We have continued to expand our footprint across the UK over the past year, and it is no surprise that this contributed to more customers than ever before shopping with us in December and over the Christmas period. In the context of a tough trading environment facing all grocery retailers, we are particularly pleased with the performance of our ‘Deluxe’ premium range of products, which registered strong sales increases and proved a major draw for new and existing customers. We understand that shoppers are increasingly conscious of cost and for that reason, we not only continued to invest in our low prices – as is seen in our 19p veg offers – but also innovation across our premium range, all to enable our customers to have the best possible seasonal celebrations.”

Lidl’s mince pie selection, which included frangipane and ice topped options, alongside more traditional flavours, sold like ‘hot cakes’, with shoppers buying over 40,000 mince pies an hour. The supermarket’s speciality fruit and veg was also flavour of the day, with its Sprouts Trees, Cavelo Nero and Speciality Broccoli helping to create a 100% uplift in sales of its premium fruit and veg offering. A surprise best seller across the season, from Lidl’s Deluxe range, was its Brioche Burger Buns, of which it sold 100 tonnes the equivalent of eight New Routmaster buses. Following the success of its pink gin liqueurs in Christmas 2017, Lidl introduced new flavours to its artisanal Hortus gin range, including Plum and Cinnamon, and Gingerbread. This contributed to an 18% YOY sales increase across its beer, wine and spirits range, making it the fastest growing in the market over the Christmas season[.

This year, Lidl launched a Christmas dinner donation initiative in partnership with Neighbourly to help tackle loneliness, donating 3,000 full Christmas dinner, with all the trimmings, to 131 local charities across Great Britain. These food items enabled charities to bring people together and host a Christmas meal over the festive period.

Lidl’sstore expansion also continued at pace across the UK in the final months of the year, with seven stores opening throughout the holiday season. To support its continued growth in the UK, Lidl has committed to investing a further £1.45bn across 2019 and 2020 in the UK, which includes the opening of a new RDC in Doncaster in early 2019.